Carlsbad to Albuquerque

Left our campsite South of Carlsbad and drove about 10 miles North of the city and visited the Living Desert which is for beginners like us a great education about desert wildlife and vegetation. Went through a zoo of desert birds including the owls you see in one of the photos I'll attach, a Javelina (wild pig), a bear, wolves, elk, bison, deer, prairie dogs, snakes, and others along with nature walks with the vegetation-mostly cacti-labeled-then there was a whole building devoted to succulents of the world-some beautiful cacti,etc. We have a multitude of photos to show those who might have an interest. In all we spent about 2 hours seeing all the exhibits-mostly outdoors and by 11 am it was getting hot so we decided to get on the road in the air conditioned car and headed North for Roswell, NM. The only aliens we saw were inflatable ones on used car lots-we passed up a variety of UFO museums. Had a slight mishap with a low canopy over a gas bar and it broke the cover over the camper refrigerator-but the gas attendant told us about an RV repair shop a couple of miles away and we got a new cover and Hank installed it in just a few minutes. From there we headed West up into the high desert-past and through some incredibly high mountains-I always pictured NM as being very flat. Beautiful, but barren lands-not many towns-and eventually we came upon the Valley of Fire-5 miles or so of black rock outcroppings in every direction as far as we could see which we stopped to examine. The rocks beside the road looked very porous-have to Google that and see what I can learn! Eventually we made our way to I-25 about 80 mi. South of Albuquerque-made it to the city just in time for rush hour, but made our turn onto I-40 West with no trouble. We had found The Enchanted Trails Campground in our Passport America directory and had no trouble locating the campground itself. It turns out that this campground was originally Hill Top Trading Post on Route 66! Hank has always wanted to drive on what's left of rte 66-tonight he got his wish. We drove the 15 miles to the Route 66 Casino so we could have dinner in their buffet. Casino didn't interest us at all-too smokey and too noisy-but the buffet was inexpensive and very good!

Now settling in for the night we've enjoyed a beautiful desert sunset. Heading West into Arizona tomorrow. Apologies-for whatever reason am unable to attach photos tonight.